If Owners Back out on CBA - Salary Cap is gone for good

Yikes, this is looking worse by the day. Here's the latest from PFT. The guy who represented NHL owners in their recent lockout is now on the side of NFL owners. Anyone else getting that sinking feeling yet? Greed is slowly starting to tear the NFL asunder.

OMINOUS DEVELOPMENT IN LOOMING CBA BATTLE

With all signs pointing to trouble between the NFL and its players union regarding a Collective Bargaining Agreement that is poised to expire after the 2010 season, the league has made a move that might further set the stage for a work stoppage.

According to Liz Mullen and Daniel Kaplan of SportsBusiness Journal, the league has hired Bob Batterman to participate in the negotiations with the NFL Players Association. Batterman represented hockey owners in connection with talks that resulted in a work stoppage that killed an entire season and, for many mainstream sports fans, removed the NHL from the ranks of the major sports leagues.

The problem apparently is that the same-old, same-old approach isn't yielding results. Per SBJ, initial talks between the league and the union have gone nowhere.

"All they can agree on is the players are getting paid too much," NFLPA executive director Gene Upshaw said. "They can never tell you what they want."

Actually, Batterman was quietly hired last March, roughly a year after the league agreed to the current CBA. He has not yet been introduced to the discussions, but he sounds curiously optimistic about the prospects. He told SBJ that a new deal could be worked out "in a matter of weeks if the parties are on a common wavelength."

So, apparently, the NHL and its union had to scrap a full year of competitive hockey before they landed on a "common wavelength."

Sorry, NFL, but we think that anyone connected with the NHL fiasco should be regarded as radioactive for purposes of avoiding pro football's first work stoppage since 1987. And with football now the clearly dominant professional sport in America, the distractions created by labor unrest could be disastrous to its position.

Our take on this situation is that the league thinks that using Batterman will help to create the impression that the owners are going to play hardball. And it's precisely that kind of posturing that backs folks into corners and fuels unnecessary fighting. Though many believe that the relationship between the league and the union was too cozy in the past, battling for the sake of battling isn't going to create a long-term deal with which both sides can live, and from which everyone can continue to prosper.

Finally, are we the only ones troubled by the fact that Batterman's firm, as stated in the SBJ article, "has been representing the other three major American sports leagues in labor relations for years"? Though the conflict of interest isn't blatant, the idea that Batterman's firm is beholden to the NBA, MLB, and NHL raises a red flag in our minds, given that those three leagues are surely hoping that the NFL find a way to shoot itself in the foot.

Just looking at things from a larger scale, something is going to bring down the machine that has become the NFL. No great thing lasts forever. The NFL has been gaining popularity and clout for the last decade. I would say with the NFL channel and year round activity (draft day) trades, preseason. That they have hit their max with growth. Now, the only option is alterating the business model which usually leads to conversations about the 'good old days'.

The good news would be, should the salary cap be lifted, my yard work would get completed regularly in the fall.

The Collective Bargaining Agreement is set to expire after the 2010 season, and the owners and the players appear far off from any type of negotiations that could lead to an agreement to extend labor peace beyond 2010. The owners think they gave up too much during the last round of negotiations.

"They think [the current deal] is too rich for the players, and they want to take some back," Upshaw said.

Adds union attorney Jeffrey Kessler, "The problem is that the owners could not agree among themselves on how they would share their revenues. The high-revenue teams do not want to share money they earn in their markets, and the low-revenue teams are unhappy about everything. So they find a place to agree -- they try to get it back from the players."

The 2011 season might feel like it's a long way off, but the owners and the union should be addressing these issues now to avoid a labor stoppage.

I just don't see this not getting resolved. I think it's just alot of posturing on both sides. They HAVE to be smart enough to know they are slitting their own throats if they don't get this done.
The ONLY thing that would scare me is if Matt Millen was put in charge.